Every year during the dry season thousands of hectares of forest are burned, often even inside the National Parks. This cause immense damages to the local flora and fauna but also to people. Between 2500 and 3000 patients are treated every day for respiratory and eyes inflammation, the visibility fall below 1000m forcing the authority to cancel airline flights, dioxin from plastic burning is release in huge quantity into the air, houses burned, CO2 emission,… just to mention few.
Main reason for burning are:
- Increase farmland
- Removal of farming waste
- Clearing leaves
- Dispose garbage (there are no enough landfills so private and public garbage is often dumped in the forest and burned)
- Clearing forest ground to enable easier tree harvesting
- Burning forest land to increase the yield of commercial mushroom (Hed Hnang and Had Top)
- Burning forest land to increase ants population (ant’s eggs are a delicacy in Thailand)
- Hunting: in some area hunters use burnings to draw out animals.
- Superstition: locals often believe that burning the forest will bring them luck and prosperity (although it can sound strange to some of us, we have to understand that magic and superstition is as real as the physical world for most of South-East-Asian population)
Thai authority seems to care and do very little to address this important topic. With this petition you can help us to leverage the Thai government to issue and implement a stronger policy and most important an effective campaign of education for the hill tribes. We believe that most of the reasons for burning can be eradicated by teaching the local people the real consequences of what they are doing and some alternative and sustainable way to earn a living.
